Perseus Art and Archaeology Browser

ID:

aa_5328

Beazley Number:

310200

Type:

Vase

Date:

ca. -560 — ca. -550

Period:

Archaic

Context:

Said to be from Attica

Region:

Attica

Painter:

Attributed to Lydos

Condition:

Broken and repaired, with the very bottom of the tondo and about two thirds of the rim restored in plaster. One circular piece reattached in tondo. Minor scratches. The added white of the chitons has largely worn away.

Dimensions:

H. 0.03 m.; D. 0.22 m.

Ware:

Attic Black Figure

Shape:

Plate

Shape Description

Standard plate shape for the period. The central disk is slightly convex on top and concave on bottom, and is surrounded by a shallow ring foot. The convex rim is sharply offset and has a groove around its inner lip. Two suspension holes pierce the rim above the figures' heads.

Decoration Description

The winged sons of Boreas, the North Wind, are flying to the right, their limbs in the pinwheeling Knielauf posture, the standard archaic convention for suggesting rapid movement, be it running or flying. Their names are Kalais and Zetes, but they are known collectively as the Boreads; it is not certain which is which. We are probably to understand them as flying in pursuit of the Harpies, the disgusting birds who tormented the blind Thracian king Phineus and who were driven away by the Boreads when they arrived with the Argonauts. The bodies of the two brothers are superimposed, so that all one sees of the farther brother are the face, left hand, lower legs and feet, left knee, the fronts of the thighs, and the outer contours of the wings. We are left to assume that they are dressed identically, with an animal skin worn over a white chitoniskos with wavy incised folds and a border of running spirals. The hair is tied in a krobylos. The wings have stripes of added red and white, the former with white dots, the latter with incised feathers. The coverts are black with a pattern of incised crescents. The knobby knees and thick leg muscles are marked with bold incision. Both brothers have long noses and chins. At the bottom of the disk, beneath the churning legs of the wind-gods, sits a hare, its fur indicated by stippled incision. At lower left is the tail of a snake, his head now missing. The figures are framed by a simple circular stripe. Beyond this, on the rim, is a broad black band decorated with a white zigzag. Circling the bottom of the disk are three broad concentric bands. The lip is black and a broad black band circles the underside of the rim.

Graffiti

Incised in large letters on the disk, crossing the figures, are the letters *E*R*I, followed by part of another letter now too fragmentary to read. On the bottom of the disk, in letters of similar type, is incised *E*S*E*R*G*O*N. Robinson CVA, Robinson 1, 40 interpreted both inscriptions together to read *E*R*I*S *E*S *E*R*G*O*N ("Work is Strife"). Accordingly, he named the painter of his plate the Strife Painter. This translation, however, is of very doubtful accuracy.

Notes

The pursuit of the Harpies by the Boreads appeared in Greek art as early as the 7th century, so even individual black-figure images of a bearded wind god are usually interpreted as a Boread, not as Boreas himself, whose iconography is poorly defined in this period. Such images appear in Corinthian and Laconian vase-painting at the same time as this plate, but the portrayal of both Boreads in this overlapping manner is perhaps an Attic innovation. For an individual Boread within a circular frame, cf. a Middle Corinthian plate in Berlin (Berlin F 3934; LIMC, III, pl. 105, Boreadai 30); for a Laconian example, cup the tondo of the kylix Boston 64.1459 (LIMC, III, pl. 106, Boreadai 32. For the closest Attic parallel to the Harvard plate, with overlapping Boreads, cf. the tondo of the fragmentary kylix Athens 1757 (LIMC, III, pl. 100, Boreadai 2.

Collection:

Cambridge, Harvard University Art Museums

Bequest of David M. Robinson.

Citations and Bibliography

ABV, 112.54; Para, 44; Beazley Addenda 2, 31.

CVA, Robinson 1, 40, pl. 19, 1; Beazley 1951, 47; LIMC, III, 127, pl. 100, Boreadai 1; Journal of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 3 (1991) 19, fig. 4.